[Seruzawa]

It is impossible to fire any firearm “accidentally”. It is always and only neglect and incompetence, at the very least.

[Joe 6-pack]

"It is impossible to fire any firearm “accidentally”. It is always and only neglect and incompetence, at the very least."

There may be some extremely rare instances of material failure or defect that result in an accidental discharge. Even in those cases, there may be negligence if it was not detected during normal routine maintenance and inspection. But such situations are truly very rare, and even when they do occur, other safe firearm handling practices will still generally preclude injury.

Apart from that, I agree completely. The overwhelming majority of firearm, "accidents," aren't accidents at all, and if you backtrack on the sequence of events leading up to the, "accident," you will almost invariably find more than two or three instances of incompetence, inexperience or ignorance that would otherwise have preempted the, "accident."

[hanamizu]

It is impossible to fire any firearm “accidentally”. It is always and only neglect and incompetence, at the very least.

---

I will confess that I ‘accidentally’ fired an 1897 Winchester shotgun as a kid. Exposed hammer, just like a Colt single action. Had been duck hunting with my uncle. I had taken a shot or two. After the ducks had flown off unscathed, I found myself with a loaded shotgun with the hammer back. I tried to lower the hammer, but if slipped off my very cold thumb. Happily it was not pointed at my uncle who was now fishing, but he did levitate out of the water and proceeded to deliver a rather forceful talk on gun safety.

I guess I count that as incompetence.